Turbulent Reactive Flows

Turbulent reactive flows are of common occurrance in combustion engineering, chemical reactor technology and various types of engines producing power and thrust utilizing chemical and nuclear fuels. Pollutant formation and dispersion in the atmospheric environment and in rivers, lakes and ocean also involve interactions between turbulence, chemical reactivity and heat and mass transfer processes. Considerable advances have occurred over the past twenty years in the understanding, analysis, measurement, prediction and control of turbulent reactive flows. Two main contributors to such advances are improvements in instrumentation and spectacular growth in computation: hardware, sciences and skills and data processing software, each leading to developments in others. Turbulence presents several features that are situation-specific. Both for that reason and a number of others, it is yet difficult to visualize a so-called solution of the turbulence problem or even a generalized approach to the problem. It appears that recognition of patterns and structures in turbulent flow and their study based on considerations of stability, interactions, chaos and fractal character may be opening up an avenue of research that may be leading to a generalized approach to classification and analysis and, possibly, prediction of specific processes in the flowfield. Predictions for engineering use, on the other hand, can be foreseen for sometime to come to depend upon modeling of selected features of turbulence at various levels of sophistication dictated by perceived need and available capability.

Table of contents

Modelling and Simulation of Reactive Flows presents information on modeling and how to numerically solve reactive flows. The book offers a distinctive approach that combines diffusion flames and geochemical flow problems, providing users with a comprehensive resource that bridges the gap for scientists, engineers, and the industry. Specifically, the book looks at the basic concepts related to reaction rates, chemical kinetics, and the development of reduced kinetic mechanisms. It considers the most common methods used in practical situations, along with equations for reactive flows, and various techniques—including flamelet, ILDM, and Redim—for jet flames and plumes, with solutions for both. In addition, the book includes techniques to accelerate the convergence of numerical simulation, and a discussion on the analysis of uncertainties with numerical results, making this a useful reference for anyone who is interested in both combustion in free flow and in porous media. Helps readers learn how to apply applications of numerical methods to simulate geochemical kinetics Presents methods on how to transform the transport equations in several coordinate systems Includes discussions of the basic concepts related to reaction rates, chemical kinetics, and the development of reduced kinetic mechanisms, including the most common methods used in practical situations Offers a distinctive approach that combines diffusion flames and geochemical flow problems

Provides physical intuition and key entries to the body of literature. This book includes historical perspective of the theories.

The modeling of reactive flows has progressed mainly with advances in aerospace, which gave birth to a new science called aerothermochemistry, as well as through developments in chemical and process engineering. This work examines basic concepts and methods necessary to study reactive flows and transfer phenomena in areas such as fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and chemistry. The book presents tools of interest to graduate students, researchers in mathematical physics, and engineers who wish to investigate problems of reactive flows. Portions of the text may be used in courses on the physics of liquids or in seminars on mechanics.

Contents: Description of accurate boundary conditions for the simulation of reactive flows. Parallel direct numerical simulation of turbulent reactive flow. Flame-wall interaction and heat flux modelling in turbulent channel flow. A numerical study of laminar flame wall interaction with detailed chemistry: wall temperature effects. Modeling and simulation of turbulent flame kernel evolution. Experimental and theoretical analysis of flame surface density modelling for premixed turbulent combustion. Gradient and counter-gradient transport in turbulent premixed flames. Direct numerical simulation of turbulent flames with complex chemical kinetics. Effects of curvature and unsteadiness in diffusion flames. Implications for turbulent diffusion combustion. Numerical simulations of autoignition in turbulent mixing flows. Stabilization processes of diffusion flames. References.